Editorial: UL ranks high in social mobility, aiding students

It's the beginning of a new semester at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the 2013-2014 school year has gotten off to a good start.

Excitement is high for the new football season and fans have hopes for another winning year. Students are beginning classes, some for the first time on a college campus, with expectations of a successful school year.

To add to the excitement, UL Lafayette has already garnered national recognition. It has been named one of the top national universities in the country on Washington Monthly's Best Bang for the Buck list, part of the political magazine's annual College Guide. UL ranked fourth in the social mobility category and 102nd overall - no small feat, considering that it was chosen from among more than 1,500 institutions.

This designation is an honor for Lafayette and a recognition of what Acadiana residents have known all along.

The ranking acknowledges institutions that "do the best job of helping non-wealthy students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices," according to an article in Washington Monthly.

Schools are evaluated on their "contribution to the public good" in three categories.

High on the list is the social mobility category, which means recruiting lower-income students and retaining them through graduation.

And that's where UL shines. One requirement is that at least 20 percent of students enrolled must have received a Pell grant. Thirty-eight percent of UL's student population has received the grant, which helps to pay for tuition and books. The magazine also requires a student loan default rate of less than 10 percent, an indicator that students are employable after graduation.

The graduation rate is 41 percent, according to the magazine.

And that's why Lafayette's hometown university has made it into the top 10 in the social mobility category for two years in a row.

Schools are also ranked according to research, which entails producing cutting-edge scholarship, and students who earn doctoral degrees, according to the magazine. UL expends $70 million annually for research, earning it a ranking of second-highest in the nation among state public universities in research spending.

The last category is service - encouraging students to give something back.

So how does UL manage to get such high scores in social mobility? Lower income students who depend on grants and loans are those most likely to drop out of school, usually because of financial considerations.

The answer is simple, said DeWayne Bowie, vice president of Enrollment Management: UL cares.

It's a difficult task to give education a personal touch when there are more than 15,000 students on campus, but Bowie said UL makes a special effort to make sure students know they are not "just a number."

It's part of a campus-wide retention effort, he said. Faculty and staff members make an effort to keep track of how individual students are doing and if they are not attending class or seem to be having difficulty, someone from the university tries to reach out to them.

This effort has been going on as long as he can remember, said Bowie, who joined the university in 1982. But the effort has been "ramped up" in recent years to develop more of a support system.

That effort also extends to helping student get the financial aid they need.

Sometimes paperwork is not in order. Sometimes there are delays. It's especially hard for first-generation college students to navigate the maze of forms necessary to obtain grants and loans.

And when something does go wrong, whenever possible, Bowie and others in the financial aid office try not to wait for students to contact them, but reach out to the students.

"We call them, we email, we text. I've gone to classes to try to find students."

That kind of attitude "pays dividends," Bowie said, in terms of higher graduation rates, especially among students from lower income families.

People in Acadiana feel that UL is special. It's gratifying to know others have recognized that fact and have the numbers to prove it.

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Editorial: UL ranks high in social mobility, aiding students

It's the beginning of a new semester at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the 2013-2014 school year has gotten off to a good start.